Six community centre associations are considering their next step after the Vancouver park board concluded a vitriolic meeting at 3:30 a.m. Tuesday by voting to go ahead with a controversial revenue-sharing plan.

The plan, approved 5-2 after a meeting so heated that police were called at one point, will see revenues from the city’s 20 volunteer-run community centre associations pooled with the goal of making all centres more equitable.

“We now need to have some time to digest this and have thoughtful dialogue about what this means going forward,” said Ainslie Kwan, spokeswoman for the six centres battling the plan.

The board says 13 centre associations have agreed to negotiate on the new model, which would see the board control the nearly $1.2 million in revenue from community centre programs. The Strathcona Community Centre Association hasn’t indicated yet whether it will participate in negotiations before the July 1 deadline to implement the new system approved by the park board Tuesday.

The six opposing centres maintain their volunteer-run societies are best fit to manage the surplus generated by the centres’ programming.

Kwan, president of the Killarney Community Centre Association said she doesn’t know what the next step is for the six centres, after an “appalling” meeting that did not address their concerns, including public consultation and time to assess the board’s plan.

“If we enter into negotiations after (early Tuesday’s vote) and don’t have our concerns addressed, it makes it hard to come to the table in good faith,” she said.

The board’s vote came at an emergency meeting that drew about 300 people to the West End Community Centre and continued until the early-morning hours, despite several calls to stop for the evening. It ended with five Vision Vancouver park board commissioners backing the plan, and two Non-Partisan Association commissioners voting against.

Vision commissioner Niki Sharma said the board voted on a framework for negotiations, adding that staff has yet to begin talks with the community centre associations to reach a deal on how to spend the money.

She said park board staff will hire a facilitator to help with those talks, but did not know when they would begin.

While many of Monday’s speakers decried a process they said lacked transparency and responsible communication, Sharma said 13 of the community centre associations are ready to negotiate on the park board’s current proposal.

Sharma said she still has hope that the six opposing centres will come to the bargaining table before the July 1 deadline to implement the new system.

Kwan said Tuesday that if the six don’t come to the table by July 1, the park board has the authority to cancel the joint operating agreement and the associations would be asked to leave.

“It was appalling to see our elected officials conduct themselves in a manner that is not in the best interest of the citizens of Vancouver,” she said of the meeting. “They need to listen to us because we are the ones that we will be working in our communities long after this park board has moved on.”

NPA park board commissioner Melissa De Genova, who voted against the plan, was outraged the meeting was continued until long after public transit had shut down for the night, leaving some of the speakers without affordable transportation home.

She put forward a motion to have public consultation and a report back from staff before formal negotiations begin, but it was voted down.

“It is legislation by exhaustion,” said De Genova. “It is an embarrassment to the park board. We conduct public consultation on food carts ... so why not this? That I find really strange. How can we move ahead when we don’t know what the public wants?”

West End Community Centre Association member Dave Pasin was one of more than 70 speakers who registered at the meeting. He doubted whether the proposal to pool the associations’ revenues is the best way to bring equity to centres across the city.

“What’s going to happen is you’re going to have an inequity in the system, which is going to deprive the system — and when you starve a system of money you’re going to have cuts,” Pasin said. “(The park board staff) haven’t given us any leeway at all.

“This is their model: take it or leave it, it has to be done by July 1.”

Kwan’s group will continue its $200,000 public relations campaign to raise awareness about the pooling of funds, which Kwan said is a cash grab by the park board and city council, both dominated by Vision Vancouver.

Under the current 40-year-old arrangement, taxpayers pay the majority of the expenses at each community centre building, including the wages of the supervising staff and a lot of the full-time staff, according to Sharma.

The community centre associations get the revenue from the programming that’s run out of the centres and pay for some of the part-time staff who run the programming, like dance lessons, she added.

Centres in poorer neighbourhoods are at an inherent disadvantage getting revenue because their patrons can’t afford to pay the rates other centres charge, Sharma said.

Meanwhile, Vancouver Green party Coun. Adriane Carr said she fears the park board’s proposed changes may alienate legions of community centre volunteers.

She will put forward a motion Feb. 12 asking park board general manager Malcolm Bromley to report back to council within two months on how the proposed changes might affect the city’s budget if volunteer numbers drop.

Carr noted that many speakers at Monday’s meeting were blunt about the fact that they volunteer for the community, not the park board.

“For the life of me I can’t figure out why the park board is alienating our most engaged citizens who have fundraised and volunteered in every community of our city,” she said.

“If we as a city want to maintain the programs and facilities at our community centres, and the community centre associations cannot or choose not to continue fundraising because they have been so disrespectfully treated by the park board, the city will have to pick up the costs,” said Carr.

Out of the city’s 24 community centres, 20 are jointly run with community centre associations. The new Creekside Community Centre is operated by the park board.

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Vancouver park board votes to go ahead with changes for community centres

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